The biggest discouragement I have faced in this election cycle is that the media is focusing on the personalities of the candidates, rather than the ideas they support. Elections are supposed to be a battle of ideas in which each side makes an argument about what they believe, and how they are going to make the lives of Americans better.. Yet, in this year the only thing we are hearing is how terrible the other candidate would be, and that is a discouraging thing for many Americans. My first job out of college was working at the Heritage foundation in DC, and my favorite thing about that job was getting to work with the best conservative minds in the country to promote policies that truly make America the greatest country on earth. The hardest thing about that job was learning how easy it would be to fix our countries problems if we had the political leadership we needed. If we could have implemented conservative tax reform we could easily see an economy that is growing at 4% each year. But under the leadership of Obama we have seen our economy stifled by a regulatory state that makes it difficult for many companies to compete. The Dodd Frank act which supposedly was going to ensure that banks are never “to big to fail” has had the opposite effect. The big banks are more powerful than they were before the recession, and many smaller banks have closed down because the regulations in that act simply cost too much to comply with. Americans were also promised health care that was higher in quality and lower in cost and again we got the opposite result. Almost all of the major insurers have pulled out of Obamacare and premiums have gone through the roof throughout the United States.
My dad is an internal medicine physician and due to the fact that the regulations in Obamacare are onerous, many of his colleagues are retiring early or moving into private practice. In some states the only option for many families is to buy a plan that has 2,500-5,000 dollar deductible, which if a person is only making 30,000 a year is almost as bad as having no insurance at all. Obama also promised that we would be respected throughout the world, and yet there has never been a time of greater instability since the cold war ended. The Iran deal is falling apart and the other Middle Eastern countries are ramping up their nuclear programs in response to Iran’s dominance in the region. Obama promised peace but all he did was make it more likely that our soldiers will be in harm’s way in the future. The point of all this is not to point out the failures of Obama but to highlight the fact that big government cannot work better than the market. The solution to our problems is the same as it was when our nation was founded. We need a government by the people and for the people. Thomas Jefferson said “a government which governs less governs best” and his words are still true today. Every generation believes that the problems they face are unique and overwhelming, yet every generation has found ways to solve the biggest problems our country faces.
